Role in IT decision-making process:Align Business & IT GoalsCreate IT StrategyDetermine IT NeedsManage Vendor RelationshipsEvaluate/Specify Brands or VendorsOther RoleAuthorize PurchasesNot Involved

Work Phone:

Company:

Company Size:

Industry:

Street Address

City:

Zip/postal code

State/Province:

Country:

Occasionally, we send subscribers special offers from select partners. Would you like to receive these special partner offers via e-mail?YesNo

Your registration with Eweek will include the following free email newsletter(s):News & Views

By submitting your wireless number, you agree that eWEEK, its related properties, and vendor partners providing content you view may contact you using contact center technology. Your consent is not required to view content or use site features.

By clicking on the "Register" button below, I agree that I have carefully read the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy and I agree to be legally bound by all such terms.

Police App in Indiana Lets Residents Report Non-911 Incidents to Cops

Some 1,200 Fishers, Ind., residents have installed the city's new CrimeWatch App on their mobile devices to communicate with officers.

Sometimes when residents of Fishers, Ind., see something questionable on their streets, such as a strange vehicle, a person who is acting suspicious or an erratic driver, they hesitate to let police know about the situation because it doesn't qualify as a 9-1-1 call.

So instead of notifying police, a resident might do nothing at all. To the Fishers Police Department, that's a behavior the department wants to change through a new CrimeWatch mobile app that it released on May 18 for free use by any of the city's 90,000 residents.

The app, available for Android and iOS devices, lets participating residents take a photo of suspicious events, check off a box describing what they see and file a quick report to officers who are out in the streets getting notes on their in-car computers. The CrimeWatch app is not for 9-1-1 calls—residents still are being urged to call 9-1-1 for shootings, assaults and other serious crimes—but it is a way for the city's 104 cops to stay in touch with what's happening on the streets, via direct reports from concerned citizens. It's also not an app to get tips from residents. If a call becomes an emergency call, residents can hit a button on the app to directly call 9-1-1 for help.

"This is going to change the way we do law enforcement," Capt. Ed Gebhart, who spearheaded the app initiative with the department, told eWEEK. "It will allow community members to contact police cars on the streets at the time they need them."

Further reading

Once a resident reports an incident through the app, the alert goes out to officers on their in-car computers within 15 seconds so they can respond while the suspicious activity or other incident is occurring. "People who send information through the app can feel like things are being dealt with," said Gebhart. After police respond, residents are sent an automated text message to let them know police checked out their report.

The app was built by a local software developer, Auri Rahimzadeh, who spent about 18 months building the app and the back end that was needed to connect it to the department's existing systems. About 1,200 residents have installed the app so far.

Residents can select from several kinds of reports to make using the app, including a theft from a house, a theft from a vehicle, a suspicious person, a suspicious vehicle, an audible alarm and erratic driving.

Gebhart said he had the inspiration for the app as he watched the officers at a police station roll call before hitting the streets one night. "I saw half of our officers on cell phones. This is how they communicate with other people. I got to thinking about technology and how they arrive on scene" and put the ideas together.

The Fishers app aims to better engage a mobile-driven community, improve police response times and proactively circumvent crime, according to the department. Residents download the app and then register it using their name, address, phone number and email address so police know who the reports are coming from, according to Gebhart. Rahimzadeh built the app and did the development work for free and Gebhart donated his time as well.

"It's vital in law enforcement to get an accurate description of a suspect before we get out of our cars," said Gebhart, a 22-year veteran of the Fishers Police Department. "This is how this is going to change law enforcement."

Though the app has only been available for a week, about a dozen residents have used it so far to send reports to police officers. "It's a communications piece between the community and police," he said. "When they need an officer around and they think it's unimportant, I want them to use this technology because we want to respond. What we're trying to do is use the information people give us to positively patrol the streets of Fishers."